January 6, Epiphany (Matthew 2:1-12)
You rarely see a children’s pageant based on Matthew’s story of escape from a raging despot.
It was the first Christmas break of the COVID pandemic, and I was desperate for new distractions for my young children. Why not celebrate Epiphany? We made paper crowns, baked and decorated a king cake, and gave small gifts on January 6. My children got so into the holiday that they put on a play, in costume, about the journey of the Magi, taking turns riding on a toy rocking horse and laughing hysterically.
You don’t usually see a children’s pageant about the complete Matthew 2 story—filled with fear, deception, and an escape from a raging despot. The visit of the Magi to the Christ Child isn’t really part of the Christmas story anyway, but a typical pageant inserts them briefly nonetheless: three kids in paper crowns and jewel-toned bathrobes carrying colorfully wrapped boxes.
The pageants, including my kids’ impromptu performance, stop before Herod enters the scene. That’s a road we don’t want to travel. This part of the story exposes fear and conflict, which we’d rather avoid but which also show us the world as it is. We know fear, conflict, and loss because we’ve seen them along the journey of our lives.
